A Quote by Bill Gates
If people want capital gains taxed more like the highest rate on income, that's a good discussion. Maybe that's the way to help close the deficit.
Related Quotes
Income earned by the sweat of your brow should be taxed at the lowest rates, not the highest. Capital gains should be taxed at a higher rate.
The biggest revenue target is the preferential rate for long-term capital gains, which raises a perennial question: Why should capital income be taxed at a much lower rate than ordinary income? Capital assets are owned overwhelmingly by the rich.
When you tax capital gains income, you don't help the economy, you hurt the economy, which is why President Kennedy, President Reagan, President Clinton and President Bush all believed we should have a lower rate for capital gains.
I believe capital gains, for the most part, should be taxed the same way we tax income from hard work, sweat, and toil. And if we do those things, we can be a country that actually can afford debt-free college again.
If you look at the performance of the zero-income-tax-rate states and the highest-income-tax-rate states, I believe a large amount of their difference is due to taxes. Not only is it true of the last decade, but I took these numbers back 50 years. And, there's not one year in the last 50 where the zero-income-tax-rate states have not outperformed the highest-income-tax-rate states.
We're the highest taxed in the world, we're the highest taxed country right now, and it's not even close.
Tax laws favor capital over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest deductions while renters get no deduction at all.
I think it's terrible for people in effect to say that income from investment should be taxed at a much lower rate than income from labor.
Let's take the nine states that have no income tax and compare them with the nine states with the highest income tax rates in the nation. If you look at the economic metrics over the last decade for both groups, the zero-income-tax-rate states outperform the highest-income-tax-rate states by a fairly sizable amount.
Between income taxes and employment taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, Social Security taxes, we're being taxed to death.
I would favor three policies: raising the minimum wage to $12, closing the tax loophole where persons only pay a 15% income tax on long term capital gains (tax it at the full tax rate), and institute a progressive tax moving the highest tax rate from 39.6% to 45%. I would favor implementing these three policies in that order, starting with raising the minimum wage, but not stopping there.
Why do we fully tax some kinds of income from capital, like interest and dividends; partially tax other kinds like capital gains; defer tax on other kinds, like IRAs; and impose no tax at all on still other types of capital income, like interest on municipal bonds? This simply is not rational. These distinctions don't have any inherent logic.
Various justifications for lower capital-gains rates have been proffered over the years, none of them self-evident. But even conceding the wisdom of lower capital-gains rates, why should they never be taxed at all, even as they are passed from generation to generation?
Nobody prefers to earn income any more, because that's taxable. Rich people prefer to make capital gains.
I will promote savings and investment by maintaining the 15% rate on capital gains and dividends. I will eliminate the tax entirely for those with annual income below $200,000.
My rich dad taught me to focus on passive income and spend my time acquiring the assets that provide passive or long term residual income...passive income from capital gains, dividends, residual income from business, rental income from real estate, and royalties.
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